Just Plain Broken

[Rystil Arden]

SDS is a 7th level standard action strike - but you must jump completely over the target in order to get any effect out of the ability. For most non-optimized 13th level characters, that's going to be pretty tough against most CR13 enemies, especially if they aren't in Leaping Dragon Stance (which does jack all except make the jump-based Tiger Claw maneuvers plausible).

All of these caveats don't matter, though, if you can use it. The fact is, if you can use SDS at all, considering the DC to Jump over many targets, it is already incredibly abusive because nothing can make those kinds of saves. If you are a Warblade and you can use the strike, you can make the game even less fun by recovering as a Swift action after leaping and using SDS with your move and standards, thus infinitely stunning the enemy unless it rolls a 20.

And if one of these caveats applies, well, then you can't use it at all. It doesn't have to be applicable against all opponents to be broken--wouldn't a 1st-level spell that says "You automatically win against humanoids" be broken?

 

[Ace32]

-The Far Realm

You find the Far Realm broken? Doesn't it destroy your mind and typically end in getting eaten by some unknown horror?

It can't be broken if it works out to the DM's advantage, can it?

 

[IanB]

I'd probably throw leadership in there.

"Hey Bob, what did you take for your 12th level feat? I took Greater Weapon Spec!"

"Oh, that's nice. I got an entire 10th level character for mine!"

"..."

 

[Nifft]

I guess I'm still not seeing it -- the belt is granting its user ONE extra spell per day. That's nice, sure, but I hesitate to call it completely broken. And a melee type will want to think long and hard about whether or not giving up that belt of giant strength +6 is worth it.

In contrast, White Raven Tactics, with the right setup, can be used several times in a fight, making it rather gross.

If you're thinking about a melee guy wearing it, you're not seeing it at all.

Note how White Raven Tactics is explicitly included in the list of broken things.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cameron]

Uhh, Dweomerkeeper can cast Wish without paying for it. Dweomerkeeper can ignore both SR and components. It is clearly more broken than the Frenzied Berserker, for instance. Until Planar Shepherd, it may well have been the most broken PrC in existence.

Whatever it takes to get the 25 HD dragon at level 20 is still broken. The 14 HD Young Gold Dragon is an ECL 20 character in its own right. The 26 HD Mature Adult Gold Dragon is way too strong for a pet.

As for TWF, it isn't broken like DMM, so it shouldn't matter. Bringing up TWF as an opportunity cost when it isn't as good as DMM is like saying you can't take Toughness three times. So what? You can still use Two-handed weapons, which is better for a Cleric.

Wish, if you keep to the PHB as written, gives flexibility. That is fine. If you want anything more, you really should be looking at causing the PCs grief. The thing about Wish is that it is abusable, but it also specifically allows the DM to start interfering and even potentially killing off PCs if it is abused (unlike most other spells). Yes, you can gain a lot of cash out of it, if you Wish 4 times a day. That is, however, your entire base load of 9th level spells gone for the day. And there is nothing to prevent the DM from dropping you in the lair of a very, very annoyed dragon. Wish is one of those spells that requires maturity on the part of both the DM and the player. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Personally, I have never used Wish for more than stat boosts unless I am playing a Dweomerkeeper, when I will use it in lieu of 8th level spells, 6th level Cleric spells, etc., when need be.

You can consider the dragon broken all you want, but do you know what it really is? Can you describe it? What are its stats? What the PC's classes consists of?

The more we debate, the greater is my feeling that you really don't know what broken really is. For example, are the following broken?

Warmage 6/Rainbow Servant 10/Sacred Exorcist 4
Sorcerer 5/Sandshaper 1/Frostmage 4/Ruathar 1/Fiendblooded 9
Half-Ogre Cleric 3/fullcasting cleric prc combination 14 with spiked chain

I used TWF as a foil to DMM, as in it is hard to get both, not that it is equivalent to DMM.

 

[Arkhandus]

All of these caveats don't matter, though, if you can use it. The fact is, if you can use SDS at all, considering the DC to Jump over many targets, it is already incredibly abusive because nothing can make those kinds of saves. If you are a Warblade and you can use the strike, you can make the game even less fun by recovering as a Swift action after leaping and using SDS with your move and standards, thus infinitely stunning the enemy unless it rolls a 20.

And if one of these caveats applies, well, then you can't use it at all. It doesn't have to be applicable against all opponents to be broken--wouldn't a 1st-level spell that says "You automatically win against humanoids" be broken?

Yep. And as I've already demonstrated, it's not hard at all to get an absurdly high Jump check (easier than any other skill, I think) at even just the middle levels. Now, I'd have to bump up my build in level after being reminded that SDS is 7th-level, but it's just even easier at that point.

Go straight Xeph Warblade 13; feats Speed of Thought, Mental Leap, Psionic Meditation, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical (I think they could have all those at that level); use the appropriate Tiger Claw stance and such, and get an allied mage to cast Jump on you (probably Extended or Persistant so they won't have to waste more than one slot on it each day; and anyway a lesser metamagic rod of extend spell is relatively cheap at that level), easily making the Jump checks necessary (the Jump spell at 9th-level caster+ will more than make up for the couple of skill- and speed-boosting feats/class features ditched). With Psionic Meditation you could regain psionic focus as a move action whenever you had one to spare, to re-use Mental Leap; or you could replace Mental Leap and Speed of Thought with Psionic Weapon and Greater Psionic Weapon, probably, for more damage output (you'd have to change around the levels some feats are taken at, but no matter).

So, yeah...... Swooping Dragon Strike = Broken.

 

[Cameron]

Yep. And as I've already demonstrated, it's not hard at all to get an absurdly high Jump check (easier than any other skill, I think) at even just the middle levels. Now, I'd have to bump up my build in level after being reminded that SDS is 7th-level, but it's just even easier at that point.

Go straight Xeph Warblade 13; feats Speed of Thought, Mental Leap, Psionic Meditation, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical (I think they could have all those at that level); use the appropriate Tiger Claw stance and such, and get an allied mage to cast Jump on you (probably Extended or Persistant so they won't have to waste more than one slot on it each day; and anyway a lesser metamagic rod of extend spell is relatively cheap at that level), easily making the Jump checks necessary (the Jump spell at 9th-level caster+ will more than make up for the couple of skill- and speed-boosting feats/class features ditched). With Psionic Meditation you could regain psionic focus as a move action whenever you had one to spare, to re-use Mental Leap; or you could replace Mental Leap and Speed of Thought with Psionic Weapon and Greater Psionic Weapon, probably, for more damage output (you'd have to change around the levels some feats are taken at, but no matter).

So, yeah...... Swooping Dragon Strike = Broken.

What I don't get is that most people don't think that certain combinations are broken, but others are, even though *both* requires significant investment in both class abilities and feats/skills, and are only, ultimately, good for one thing. Charger-dins, the above manouevre thing, etc., are OK. But DMM? Oh, Hell no!

Why the bias?

 

[Rystil Arden]

Wish, if you keep to the PHB as written, gives flexibility. That is fine. If you want anything more, you really should be looking at causing the PCs grief. The thing about Wish is that it is abusable, but it also specifically allows the DM to start interfering and even potentially killing off PCs if it is abused (unlike most other spells). Yes, you can gain a lot of cash out of it, if you Wish 4 times a day. That is, however, your entire base load of 9th level spells gone for the day. And there is nothing to prevent the DM from dropping you in the lair of a very, very annoyed dragon. Wish is one of those spells that requires maturity on the part of both the DM and the player. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Personally, I have never used Wish for more than stat boosts unless I am playing a Dweomerkeeper, when I will use it in lieu of 8th level spells, 6th level Cleric spells, etc., when need be.

You can consider the dragon broken all you want, but do you know what it really is? Can you describe it? What are its stats? What the PC's classes consists of?

The more we debate, the greater is my feeling that you really don't know what broken really is. For example, are the following broken?

Warmage 6/Rainbow Servant 10/Sacred Exorcist 4
Sorcerer 5/Sandshaper 1/Frostmage 4/Ruathar 1/Fiendblooded 9
Half-Ogre Cleric 3/fullcasting cleric prc combination 14 with spiked chain

I used TWF as a foil to DMM, as in it is hard to get both, not that it is equivalent to DMM.

Wish, if you keep to the PHB as written, gives flexibility. That is fine. If you want anything more, you really should be looking at causing the PCs grief. The thing about Wish is that it is abusable, but it also specifically allows the DM to start interfering and even potentially killing off PCs if it is abused (unlike most other spells). Yes, you can gain a lot of cash out of it, if you Wish 4 times a day. That is, however, your entire base load of 9th level spells gone for the day. And there is nothing to prevent the DM from dropping you in the lair of a very, very annoyed dragon. Wish is one of those spells that requires maturity on the part of both the DM and the player. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Personally, I have never used Wish for more than stat boosts unless I am playing a Dweomerkeeper, when I will use it in lieu of 8th level spells, 6th level Cleric spells, etc., when need be.

...As far as I know, that is the first opinion I've heard expressed that casting Wish, Gate, etc with no cost is a reasonable ability. You can use it to make magic items or gold! And at no XP cost, that's infinite money.

The more we debate, the greater is my feeling that you really don't know what broken really is.

Could you refrain from attacking the person, rather than the idea? I'm afraid I do know what broken is, and being less broken than something even worse does not prevent something from being broken. Anyway, the Dweomercheater of Mystra ruins games. If you think that the Dweomercheater is fine, there is no point in continuing the DMM debate, since I think everyone will agree that Dweomercheater is more broken than DMM. I expect that likewise, you will be frustrated if you post in this thread to defend broken rules, since those opinions are unpopular, possibly unique among ENWorld posters to the best of my knowledge, except this one guy who said that anything published by Wizards can't have a problem and that disallowing selected material from a book for balance reasons is unfair.

However, if there's anything that you think is broken, you should definitely post them here--if they're more broken than Dweomercheater, they are things the OP should look at very very carefully!

 

[Rystil Arden]

What I don't get is that most people don't think that certain combinations are broken, but others are, even though *both* requires significant investment in both class abilities and feats/skills, and are only, ultimately, good for one thing. Charger-dins, the above manouevre thing, etc., are OK. But DMM? Oh, Hell no!

Why the bias?

Who is saying that DMM is broken and the above manoeuvre is okay? I agree with your post here (I think!)--if you are saying it doesn't matter how much investment is required so long as the result is broken and ruins games. If you are saying that heavy investment makes it okay to have an ability that ruins games (perma-stun with that manoeuvre, etc), I still disagree.

 

[AllisterH]

All of these caveats don't matter, though, if you can use it. The fact is, if you can use SDS at all, considering the DC to Jump over many targets, it is already incredibly abusive because nothing can make those kinds of saves. If you are a Warblade and you can use the strike, you can make the game even less fun by recovering as a Swift action after leaping and using SDS with your move and standards, thus infinitely stunning the enemy unless it rolls a 20.

And if one of these caveats applies, well, then you can't use it at all. It doesn't have to be applicable against all opponents to be broken--wouldn't a 1st-level spell that says "You automatically win against humanoids" be broken?

Er, isn't that 1st level spell color spray AND sleep?

I agree somewhat with you since if you do push the check as high as possible, you end up with an obscene DC but I've found that in practice, any of the Toger Claw manoeuvers which have a DC based on the normal method, the opponents pretty much always pass it.

The thing is, without the stun effect AND the high save, I wouldn't bother with the strike and thus wouldn't try to maximise it. If you set the DC as 10+manouever level+str mod, most of the creatures you want to use it against will make their saves since Fort is a strong save for many creatures (Animals, Dragons, Giants, Magical Beasts, Outsiders and Vermin all of which tend to have great Fort saves) AND many creatures are just plain immune to stunning (Constructs, Undead, Plants, Oozes and Elementals) so really, the only creatures you'll actually Stun would be Fey, Humanoids (which depends on their class) and Monstrous Humanoids.

That's not a lot of creatures.....

re: White Raven Tactics As written, this is just a problematic manoeuver. I found the best way to keep it in control is to rule "An ally can only be subject to this manoeuver once per encounter".